My job is too big for one man, says Dalai Lama
After 500 years of autocracy, Tibetan leader calls for democracy
By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent for the Independent

Robert Thurman, professor of Indo-Tibetan studies at Columbia University, said that while the Dalai Lama had managed to perform both a political and religious role, it was his belief that the Tibetan people would benefit from more secular education and taking more personal responsibility. “He thinks that democracy is the best way for this. He has dealt with Chinese autocracy for more than 60 years and he has seen what that has done,” he said. Full article.

(And all good men to stand up with them!)

I am excited to begin my HuffPost blogging in the wake of Mother’s Day, and a few days after hosting H. H. the Dalai Lama in New York. His Holiness, in radiant health and spirits, powerfully manifested his unwavering message of “world peace through inner peace.” To all of us enrapt as ever, he taught us the quintessence of compassion. [Read more]

Author, Educator Robert Thurman popularizes the Wisdom and Culture of Tibet by Adam Phillips of VOA News

Listen to the Phillips report (MP3)

As the author or translator of 18 books on Buddhism and as co-founder of Tibet House in New York, Robert Thurman has helped bring Tibetan wisdom and philosophy solidly into the American cultural mainstream. VOA’s Adam Phillips profiles the Tibetan scholar from New York. [Read more]

Robert Thurman responds to Nicholas Kristof

In the New York Times article entitled An Olive Branch From the Dalai Lama (August 6, 2008), Nicholas Kristof states, “One signal is this: For the first time, the Dalai Lama is willing to state that he can accept the socialist system in Tibet under Communist Party rule. This is something that Beijing has always demanded, and, after long discussion, the Dalai Lama has agreed to do so.” He quotes the Dalai Lama, “The main thing is to preserve our culture, to preserve the character of Tibet,” the Dalai Lama told me. “That is what is most important, not politics.”

This report is highly distorted. I am shocked by the sloppy and confused nature of the reporting and the interpretation from a journalist whose work I often admire. As some have observed, when China is involved, good people become unaware of the influence of the “anaconda in the chandelier.”

In response, Mr. Jin Canrong (China Daily (People’s Republic of China) August 21, 2008) in an article entitled “An Illusive Olive Branch from the Dalai Lama,” blasted the article from China’s side anyway. The state propaganda publication professed outrage that the Dalai Lama was “trying to negotiate through a journalist.” I am certainly disappointed by Mr. Kristof’s “illusive” article, and would like to clarify the underlying confusions. [Read more]

Duncan Campbell, host of Living Dialogues, and Robert Thurman engage in a stimulating and informative dialogue on ‘Why The Dalai Lama Matters’ to all of us. Each of them weave together many different perspectives: spiritual, historical, cultural, political and ecological, from both East and West, pertinent to the current world-affecting drama that China is engaged in with the Tibetan people and environmental destruction imitative of our own Western history.

The Dalai Lama is seen as an inspirational model, with a profound and pragmatic understanding of the nature of the planet, the hopes and conflicts of humanity, the crises we are all in, and as a great practitioner of the “art of dialogue” required for our planetary evolution. The dialogue includes references from past Olympics and a point by point summary of Robert’s five-part plan for the political and ecological reconciliation of China and Tibet.

Visit Living Dialogues to listen to the full audio of this dialogue.